'US-trained ISIS militants used to reorganize Middle East'

William Engdahl is an award-winning geopolitical analyst and strategic risk consultant whose internationally best-selling books have been translated into thirteen foreign languages. He has lectured as Visiting Professor at Beijing University of Chemical Technology and delivers talks and private seminars around the world on subjects of current importance from economics to oil geopolitics to agribusiness. A widely discussed analyst of current political and economic developments, his provocative articles and analyses have appeared in numerous newspapers and magazines and well-known international websites. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization in Montreal and member of the editorial board of Eurasia magazine. Based in Frankfurt, Germany he may be reached via his website www.williamengdahl.com

ISIS militants trained by US Special Forces have been used as a lever to create disorder and organize a Sharia state along the lines of an Islamic caliphate to the advantage of the US military, geopolitical analyst William Engdahl told RT.

RT:The US military has, in one way or
another, been involved in the Middle East region for over a
decade. Why has the violence lasted so long?

William Engdahl: The violence has lasted for
over a decade, since the invasion of Iraq in 2003, because the US
has been involved militarily in the Middle East – it’s quite as
simple as that. They toppled Saddam Hussein, Hosni Mubarak in
Egypt, they set off the wave of Arab Spring color revolutions
throughout the Arab world to reorganize the entire structure of
the region to the advantage of the US military position vis-à-vis
China and Russia, fundamentally.

RT:Has this military involvement achieved
any positives?

WE: I see only human tragedy. It’s just a policy
that has no positive humanitarian or human purpose other than
creating chaos and disorder so that the US or the government in
Washington can leverage and blackmail its allies in Europe as
well as China and Russia.

RT:How's this non-stop war been influencing
the attitude of Muslims towards the Western world?

WE: I don’t think it has created any great love
or warmth for the Western world. Certainly not between the Muslim
world and the US. The Obama administration has a project – it’s
called the Muslim Brotherhood. There are at least five Muslim
Brotherhood members or close supporters in and around the Obama
White House. And their strategy is to take this death cult that
came out of Egypt in the 1920s (Hassan al-Banna’s organization
originally) and use that as a lever to re-organize into a
fundamentalist, not just jihad, a Sharia state along the lines of
the Islamic caliphate – IS.

RT:The ongoing conflict in the Middle East
has also been regarded as a Shia-Sunni conflict. How has the
foreign involvement impacted on the religious relations between
Muslims?

WE: It’s brought them to the point of war
between Shia and Sunni. That certainly was not the case before
2003. There was an uneasy truce – but it was a truce. In Syria,
you had Shia and Sunni living side by side, Alawites and so
forth. Same in Turkey and in Iraq. And now? Look at what General
Petraeus did in Iraq to create this holy war between Shia and
Sunni there – with his strategic Hamlet-kind of insurgency,
trainings, secret police, and what not. And now we are reaping
the result. ISIS has been trained by US Special Forces in
Georgia. They’ve recruited Chechens as soldiers, they trained
them in secret NATO bases inside Turkey and Jordan. For the last
year and a half, they have been developing what we now call ISIS
(IS, ISIL or DASH) or whatever moniker you want to give it. It’s
all made in Langley, Virginia (the CIA’s seat) and [by] the
affiliates of Langley inside the Pentagon.

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.